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Worst Food Injuries


DanCole42

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What's the worst you've ever done to yourself while cooking?

I've had some bad knife mishaps... through the thumb and through the nail. I've burned all ten fingertips (at the same time). I once poured half a bottle of one of those "use only a few drops" death sauces into one bowl of chili and ended up eating half a loaf of bread and a gallon of milk. I've gotten jalapeno in my eye and on my unmentionables.

Most painful, though, was last week: slicing through a Serrano pepper, my knife went through the food and into my finger, taking a Serrano seed with it. It burned for hours.

Anyone else? Dismemberment stories win.

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The worst food injury I've sustained to date was an oil burn on the back of my right hand. I was frying chicken and bringing a pot of water to boil. As I lifted the lid from the water to rest on the counter, the condensation fell into the hot oil causing an eruption that went everywhere! I immediately put my hand under cold water, and then wrapped a bag of frozen peas on so that I could continue cooking. Mistake. I should have thrown in the towel, stopped cooking and taken care of the burn. I still have a livid scar across my knuckles as a result.

It didn't help that a few days after the burn, I started a new job with a bunch of PowerGrip handshakers. The burn pad, bandage and special glove were no deterrent to these ubermen. Good to meet you. CRUNCH. My new skin had no chance to grow!

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That's a good lesson for the rest of us Rachel.

Here's mine: not that any of you would be dumb enough to do this...

I put cheap wine glasses in the dishwasher and once a load was done several years ago, I pulled out a wine glass by the stem and noted it was still quite wet. So, I gave it a flick to air dry it,which promptly caused the stem to break between my thumb and index finger, leaving a nice gash on the thumb. Undeterred, I used half a roll of paper towels, held my hand over my head, and used the other hand to open that bottle of wine for which the glass was plucked for.

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I can think of two: one is a "should have known better" and the other a freak accident that could have been far worse. I've had a few close calls with mandolines and generally avoid them.

Probably about 15 years ago, I was making a pot roast on a Sunday afternoon. I had a short sleeved shirt on. As I seared the meat in hot fat at the beginning of the process, instead of using tongs or a long fork to loosen the browning meat, I did what I had done many times before and have never done again: I tilted the pot and shook it gently to loosen the meat. It loosened all right. Then it sloshed around in the pot, splashing me with hot fat and giving me second degree burns on the inside of my right forearm. That was a fun trip to the emergency room :blink: .

The freakiest incident was when I was reaching high above my head to pull out a nested stack of old pyrex measuring cups. They didn't bang against each other very hard as I lifted them out, but one of them shattered, causing a chain reaction and everything went everywhere. Shards of pyrex are brutal to deal with. Trust me on this. You don't want to get fragments of pyrex inside your nostrils. I don't want to think about what would have happened if it had gotten into my eyes. I guess that's a cautionary tale, too. I'm more careful with pyrex now.

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Every serious cook has lots of burn scars and memories of knife cuts. I cut the fleshy tip off one of my fingers many years ago. I have some burn scars on my right arm that have caused doctors who don't know me to wonder if I am a "cutter." My most recent memorable kitchen injury is still with me in the form of a black big toenail. I was working in the kitchen barefooted (big mistake). I had pulled a heavy Le Creuset pottery casserole out of a cabinet, and another one that had been nested inside it came flying out of the cabinet and landed on my toe. I was limping for almost a week, and couldn't wear a sock or shoe. Couldn't even tolerate a sheet touching my foot at night. I didn't break my toe, but it was one of the most painful injuries I've had in years.

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I have a burn right now. :blink: It's minor, unlike the one I had about 2 years ago from reaching into then-boyfriend's oven to flip something I was toasting under the broiler. Dummy didn't have a toaster or a toaster oven. The other dummy (me) burned the thin skin on the top of her hand. Somehow I managed to avoid crying although it hurt so much. Even now, words fail me.

Well, I sat for the next few hours with various cold objects atop my hand. Cold cans of soda, bags of frozen peas, etc. Should have gone to the doctor. When I finally did, I got a scolding (2nd degree burn!) and a tetanus shot (owie!).

I bought the f*cker a toaster after that.

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When I was four or five I stuck a dried black-eyed pea up my nose. I was in the backseat of our egg-colored Chervolet Citation (white trash car of the century) on my way to meet Ronald McDonald and that purple guy; my dad was shooting them (cameras, not guns) for a publication I gratefully do not recall.

Anyway, I guess we had been shopping at the Co-op that day (...and off to McDonald's).

I could never keep my hands off of that bulk food and became fixated on a bag of beans.

"Hey, maybe I should put one of these up my nose," I thought. Well, I did that, and the legume ended up in my brain. I was not happy. After much panic (and pain), the pea was ejected...and I still got to see the clown.

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Undeterred, I used half a roll of paper towels, held my hand over my head, and used the other hand to open that bottle of wine for which the glass was plucked for.

That's the kind of determination that makes this a great country! :blink: I just hope you didn't contaminate the wine!

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Every serious cook has lots of burn scars and memories of knife cuts. I cut the fleshy tip off one of my fingers many years ago. I have some burn scars on my right arm that have caused doctors who don't know me to wonder if I am a "cutter." My most recent memorable kitchen injury is still with me in the form of a black big toenail. I was working in the kitchen barefooted (big mistake). I had pulled a heavy Le Creuset pottery casserole out of a cabinet, and another one that had been nested inside it came flying out of the cabinet and landed on my toe. I was limping for almost a week, and couldn't wear a sock or shoe. Couldn't even tolerate a sheet touching my foot at night. I didn't break my toe, but it was one of the most painful injuries I've had in years.
Ow :P . I've suffered a lot of bruises from dropping things I'm trying to get out of cabinets, but that sounds really painful. I don't work in the kitchen barefoot, but sandals don't make a whole lot of difference when things land on your feet. I do have a funny anecdote about that. I like trying to remember the funny accidents to counterbalance the painful ones. ;)

One summer day quite a few years ago, I looked down at my feet and my right(?) foot had a bizarre orange discoloration on the top. I was convinced I had contracted some rare disease. My other foot was okay, though. I looked in the mirror and the rest of my skin looked okay. It was weird. My foot was discolored almost in a pattern, like a rash with no explanation. It didn't hurt or itch. I fretted and worried and couldn't figure out what was wrong with my foot.

I went to get something out of the spice cabinet and saw a little orange powder on the shelf. Turmeric. I hadn't gotten it all cleaned up from a couple of days before when I knocked over the jar of turmeric when I was getting something else out. The lid wasn't on tight and, as it tumbled out of the cabinet, it spilled all over the counter and all over my foot, on its way to the floor. I'd been wearing flip flops with several straps on the top. Yes, that was strange orange rash on my foot. :blink:

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Am I the only one who’s had a run in with a Mandoline?

I had a craving for an empanada-style apple pie. The dough was made; all I needed to do was slice the apples. Out comes the trusty Mandoline. Cut and cored the apples. No problem. Scratched my knuckles on the blades. No problem. Said to self: Oh, it’s just the knuckles; I’ve got about two more good slices left. Big problem. Took off the tip of my right thumb. Who knew there are so many blood vessels in the thumb??!! My kitchen looked like a crime scene: blood splatters everywhere: on the cabinets, the floor, the fridge, the walls.

Remembered a bit of my Girl Scout first aid training: wrapped the thumb as best I could. Started to clean up; still bleeding through the bandage. Elevated said thumb above my heart; still more bleeding. Finally went to a neighbor to ask her to wrap the bloody thing; she invited me into her apartment. Everything was white: the carpet, the furniture, even the tablecloth! I’m gushing blood and the silly woman tells me to come in.

It seems her Girl Scout training was better than mine. She took one look and suggested we go to hospital. I’m thinking: she’s overreacting; it’s just a little cut. After explaining that the Mandoline in question was not a musical instrument – how clumsy do you have to be to produce that much blood from a string instrument! – the “little” cut resulted in 10 stitches and some nice drugs.

Lessons learned… a cut – bloody or not – takes precedence over other hospital injuries (e.g., broken bones, smashed thumbs): show a bit of blood and you jump to the head of the line; there is a reason those things come with a protective guide; and, do not drink liquor when handling sharp, cutting objects: blood is not a good mixer with alcohol.

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Am I the only one who’s had a run in with a Mandoline?
Nope. That's why I don't usually use one. I figure I'm ahead of the game by having only cut myself and not removing entire chunks of finger in the process.
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I've had the usual burns, cuts, stabbed hands, and run ins between capsaicin and various body parts.

But probably the most interesting story is the time I got a piece of KFC lodged in my throat and had to go to the hospital to get it removed. Yeah....embarrassing to say the least!

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The perils of letting dirty dishes sit - a spaghetti noodle was stuck on the side of the pot - instinct told me to scrap it with my thumbnail, which caused it it penetrate beneath my fingernail almost to the bottom of the nail. I now know why a form of torture is bamboo shards under a fingernail - the pain was almost near equal to childbirth. Being too embarrassed to call a doctor, I let it go - until I got the tell-tale blood line starting down my hand. The infection that insued required over a month of 2 different antibiotics, along with pain medication.

Another adventure happened when I was cooking a roast from the Silver Palette Good Times cookbook, and showing my husband how you pour brandy over and ignite it to get a nice crust. Not thinking that I had been cooking this on top of the stove, and was almost 9 months pregnant, as I ignited the brandy, the flames traveled out of the pot, across the stove and up my belly, since the grease from the roast had sprayed on my shirt. My hair and eyebrows were singed, but fortunately I was not hurt. I have never cooked this way since.

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Those of you who haven't yet been treated to the viewing of the scar on my hand can catch me at the picnic. I remember being surprised that the inside of my hand looked EXACTLY like the skin and flesh of the raw duck I was attempting to debone. :blink:

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Am I the only one who’s had a run in with a Mandoline?

Those stupid mandoline gripper thingies are such a pain that I was slicing pommes for Pommes Anna without using one. A friend of mine standing nearby warned me that a another friend, Joel, had cut himself badly the week before using a similar technique. In a tone of voice that was a little condescending even for me I told her that I thought I had a little more experience in the kitchen than Joel. And the promptly cut the tip of my thumb of. Two lessons for the price of one.

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God almighty, this thread is beginning to sound like "Hostel." Maybe DR needs to organize a knife skills class. :blink:

Considering how often I whip a knife around in the kitchen, I've been lucky so far, maybe because I began woodworking long before I developed any interest in cooking. Power saws teach you respect.

Lizzie's story of the noodle under the fingernail wins the prize in my book. Talk about random violence!

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Grab hot saute pan out of oven using a mitt and place on stove. Turn around and take mitt off. Turn back to stove and grab pan with bare hand. Second degree burns on palm and parts of a couple of fingers. Eat dinner with hand in a pitcher of cool water. Go to ER and get percoset.

Many years ago. Grab sheet tray of bread out of roaring hot convection oven with one hand that is well protected. Balance on top of second hand that was well protected. Get distracted and bumb edge against unprotected forearm. Place tray down, run into walk-in and scream for 10 minutes. Had a 1-1/2 long scar of an equal sign (=). That took almost a decade to fade away completely.

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Yeah the hot pan..... I was making a pan full of roasted bones for stock. I had a huge Calphalon pan in my old fashioned, huge Gaffer and Stattler's oven. It was filled with something like 15# of bones and chopped veggies, all as brown as George Hamilton in an old Doonsbury comic.

I took the pan out of the oven with several mitts and pads (ie suspenders & a belt!). I put the pan on the stove. I took off my two oven mitts and set themaside with the two oven pads I was using as well. I put my 24 qt stockpot on the floor. I turned around and non chalently picked up the pan by its cast iron handle. Its red hot cast iron handle. As I was dumping the bones in the pot I was thinking to myself that the bones had this funny almost bacony smell to them. Then it hit me, my had had basically melted to the handle.

Lucky I had an Aloe Vera plant and I cut several leaves in half and wrapped them aorund my hand. I was then off to the emergency room thanks to the generosity of the masters-in-social-work student/part-time stripper who lived next door. It wasn't till we got to the ER that I noticed that she was wearing just her red silk robe and a pair of pink (I think, may have been orange) panties and fuzzy bunny slippers. We made quite an entry to the ER.

Surprisingly we were escorted to an exam room pronto and several male ER docs entered. When they took a look at my hand, they said that everything was OK and that the Aloe had taken care of the burn. To the dismay of the docs, my stripper friend immediately drove me home!

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It's a wonder I got out of the kitchen at the Old Town Whole Foods alive. I'm a competent home cook, but knew nothing of commercial kitchen equipment. I have a good sized scar on my wrist from one of the numerous burns I received courtesy of the commercial steamers. Have you ever used a tilt skillet? Got more burns from that mo-fo too. I still have a little pain from time to time from a smashed knuckle on my middle finger. I was tearing off a big sheet of foil in a hurry and knocked my finger against a pointy edge of a scale. I'm not sure, but I may have fractured it.

I picked up pretty darn good knife skills in that kitchen though. Thought I'd show off with my friend's santoku knife and a tomato one night-- my professional slicing demonstration was quite impressive right up until I shaved off most of the skin on the part of my finger that was guiding the blade. I lifted the blade too high. I attribute that one to a foreign knife, not the 4 or 5 glasses of wine I had. :blink:

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I was in a hurry getting miniburger toppings done for The Picnic Before The Last (or maybe the one before), so I was racing around and kicked with bare foot a Sun disk array I had inexplicably sitting on the floor in the kitchen, breaking one, and possibly two toes. Was really uncomfortable all day.

I've gotten off pretty light in the kitchen so far. My second order of business at Corduroy (First was totally nailing some pineapple tarts :blink: ) was slicing a finger open. Wet zucchini are slippery! Nothing more than a nick after that. Here's hoping that streak continues for a bit.

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Yes, that was strange orange rash on my foot. :blink:
Reminds me of when I was living with a med student in college. He had a dermatology textbook he would leave lying open on the coffee table with the most God-awful photographs of the grossest skin maladies known to mankind.

One day I had been making pizza dough and still had some dried flour caked on my hands. He came into the kitchen. I held out my flour-caked hands and asked for his expert opinion, explaining with utmost innocence that the rash had just suddenly cropped up and itched like the dickens and seemed to be spreading rapidly. But, I assured him that I was very careful when I was making dinner to not let any part of my skin touch the food or food prep surfaces. Oh, the horror on his face. Had the pizza all to myself that evening. I love a good practical joke, as long as I get the pizza. ;) And to bring this back on topic - the injury was pretty bad, but it was only to his ego.

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Long story short...let's just say that holding a damp towel on a spinning deli slicer is NOT the quickest way to get it clean. In fact, it was quite a bit messier after I was through with it. ( Ahhhh...the wonders of being a 16 year old cook in a kitchen where if you weren't high on some drug or narcotic during your shift, you were jeopardizing your employment status with the boss.)

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Who can forget all the bagel injuries from 10 years ago when we all tried to balance the bagel on the counter/slice in our hands/do some other fool thing?

My two worst injuries:

- Cooking pasta when very very tired, and having the whole pot of hot water back-splash on my bare feet. (No, I don't know how that worked exactly, but I've got the scar to prove it)

- Cast iron skillet. Filleted leg of lamb. Reaching up to the cabinet over the stove while wearing a slightly too small t-shirt.

I am deeply grateful for aloe vera and ice packs.

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Those stupid mandoline gripper thingies are such a pain that I was slicing pommes for Pommes Anna without using one. A friend of mine standing nearby warned me that a another friend, Joel, had cut himself badly the week before using a similar technique. In a tone of voice that was a little condescending even for me I told her that I thought I had a little more experience in the kitchen than Joel. And the promptly cut the tip of my thumb of. Two lessons for the price of one.
Yeah and on Iron Chef they always show them being used without the gripper -- what a bad influence. Any way the correct term for them is "Hand Guard" for a reason as I discovered a few years ago. The nurse who took care of me in the ER (after he told me that he had never once seen anyone bleed out through a finger tip amputaion) called the Mandoline a "kitchen guillotine."
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Yeah and on Iron Chef they always show them being used without the gripper -- what a bad influence. Any way the correct term for them is "Hand Guard" for a reason as I discovered a few years ago. The nurse who took care of me in the ER (after he told me that he had never once seen anyone bleed out through a finger tip amputaion) called the Mandoline a "kitchen guillotine."

Yeah, I think the only device that is as inherently dangerous as a mandoline is a wood chipper. That and perhaps 4Skin-B-Gone, the do-it-yourself home circumcision kit by Ronco.

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I was 18 and in my bathrobe and bare feet. In our laundry room at home in CT there was a double cabinet above the washer and dryer. One side had all the cookbooks, the other had laundry supplies such as bleach. On top of the double cabinet was where my parents stored all 20 of my father's ceramic serving platters.

No one else was home. I went into the laundry room to get a cookbook to make a cake for my sister's birthday. As I closed the cabinet door the entire cabinet suddenly separated from the wall from the top and was only connected at the bottom, like a hinge. It hit me in the face and my nose started bleeding. At the same time, instinctively, I pushed one hand against each door to keep the cabinet, and all the contents inside, from collapsing on top of me. (Cabinet is now higed out at a 45 degre angle). I am now holding the entire weight of the cabinet up with both arms above my head. All 20 platters fall, hitting me on the head, shattering on the floor, and cutting my legs and feet.

As I stand there, holding the cabinet up to avoid being crushed and bleeding from the nose and legs, the bleach stored on the other side starts to leak out the bottom of the cabinet, down my arm, and into my leg cuts. Ow.

Luckily my mom came home about 10 minutes later, where she found me still standing in a pool of bleach and blood holding the cabinet up, about ready to pass out from the fumes. She emptied the cabinet from the top, got me shoes, and to the Dr. we went. Luckily I only had 2 black eyes, a bloody nose, and superficial cuts. They cleaned me up and gave me a lot of advil.

I came home, made the cake, and went to a summer job interview the next day looking like a racoon.

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-mandoline injury, check (more minor than those here, I got my worst one CLEANING the damn thing)

-various cutting injuries, check (once went to the ER to have the 24 year old doctor say to the nurse, as if I weren't there, "Wow that is really superficial"....dig it but I went through a roll of paper towels and it was still spurting, could you just maybe put a couple stitches in it, beyotch? And did you think I wouldn't know what "superficial" meant?)

-the condensation-into-the-hot-grease thing, check

- the remarkable staying power of some of our hotter chili oils even a half hour after the dice, check

-but has anybody else picked up a 50-quart kettle containing eleven gallons (equals 88 lbs, give or take) of just-off-the-boil homebrewed wort, to put it on a higher stand so it will drain into fermenter quicker....having forgotten to slip on the ol' insulated gloves and while not wearing (TMI I know) a shirt?

Eleven gallons of wort in a 50 quart kettle doesn't leave much room for error, 200-degree-liquid-splashing-around-wise....but when you decide mid-transfer to mitigate the instability that's causing the spillover by TIGHTLY CRADLING THE KETTLE to your bare chest, well....this is the stuff that Darwin Awards are made on...

Stainless steel ain't the best conductor but it'll definitely do...

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I was out of college only a few years. in my own apartment, slicing a bagel, when I sliced my right index finger.

It was bleeding SO MUCH (I thought) so I went to the emergency room and the attending took one look at it and said, "yeah, we could probably say this needs a stitch."

So they gave me one stitch to seal it back up.

A few weeks later, my insurance form arrived in the mail and listed on the statement that "patient care required one stitch."

I couldn't even say, "I had stitches" and instead had to say "I had stitch."

Loser-ville. Population: 1

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After using my coffee turned spice grinder to grind up some mustard seed, pepper, nutmeg and sage, I made the mistake of cleaning it out by, of all things, blowing into it. The concave-ish shape of the bowl, of course, resulted in most of the spice mixture blowing directly into my left eye.

Luckily, I keep a thing of saline solution around for exactly this sort of mishap.

But boy, was my eye RED.

I

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I've been pretty lucky when it comes to avoiding major mishaps (including a chef's knife that fell tip down and stuck straight up from the tip of a shoe but missed any actual flesh by a couple of millimeters). My worst was probably as a kid on a camping trip when I went to grab a cheap camping pot that had mere seconds ago been sitting over an open campfire. I learned that day what those removable "bulldog" handles that come with compact camping sets are for; I singed off a good chunk a flesh from my thumb and inside of my forefinger. This was well before the cellphone days and we were already 2 days into the hike, so our counselor told me to go hold it under running stream water for a bit and then bandaged it up. It's a wonder it didn't get infected. To this day I have a little crease in the pad of my thumb, 20+ years later.

Several years ago I picked up a cheap, stamped chef's knife for $0.25 from Caldor (remember them?!) during their final going-out-of-business days. Hey, it was coated in Teflon to effortlessly slice through food! I learned sharpening and honing using that blade and could get it scary, scary sharp (it would hold that edge for all of 30 seconds so I got a lot of practice). It was my habit to hone it prior to putting it away. When I upgraded to the real deal it ended up in the back of a drawer. As I was moving house 5 years ago I reached in to empty that drawer and ran the tip of my middle finger along the blade. Not laterally across, but longitudinally down the tip. I was in a hurry to get things packed and already in a pissy mood, so I plunged it into a glass of ice water on the counter top to staunch the blood flow and grabbed the two things I had plenty of at hand: paper towels and packing tape. I ended up with a golf ball sized wad of towel and tape on my finger that also acted like a splint; when I finally stopped to take it off two days later it had already started to heal, but I had to be careful for another week not to bend that finger and open it back up. I really should have gone to the hospital for that one ...

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After mixing-up a batch of dry rub with my hands (sans gloves), I rinsed off the dust that had stuck to my hands, and then went to the bathroom. It took a minute for the capsaicin to take hold and suddenly I felt like a sailor the day after a visit to a Southeast Asian whorehouse.

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Sadly, my second entry in this thread....

Last year, I was cutting a bagel that had been frozen and defrosted (I bring them to DC from CT because bagels here suck) to eat as an early morning snack on a Sunday before I was to head to a brunch about 5 hours later. In my early-morning fog the knife slipped off the bagel (which was harder due to the freeze/defrost) and sliced down to the bone on my left thumb knuckle. Definitely needed stitches.

A friend drove me to Sibley, where I waited and eventually got stitches. The Dr. asked how it happened and I told him I fought a bagel and the bagel won. He said he sees a number of these bagel injuries at the Sibley ER on Sundays every month (note the different injuries treated at Sibley vs. GW). Talk about a yuppie injury.

I missed the brunch with my aunt. For christmas she bought me a bagel slicer that requires no hands.

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Ok. I don't know if you guys are ready for this but here it goes. A line cook I worked with at deluxe a few years back had tripped over a flipped up rubber kitchen mat and instinctively put his hands out. One of them went forearm deep into the fryalator. The outer layer of skin came off like a glove within 5-10 minutes. He was out of work for 6 months. Even after it was "healed" his arm looked like Freddy Kruger's face. Another guy I used to work with in KC was polishing a wine glass and had his hand, with the towel, inside the bowl part and was turning the glass back and forth. The mouth of the glass was much smaller and thepressure from his hand busted it but it took him a turn or two to realize he was slashing his hand open.

Oh I also slammed a guys finger in a bread drawer and he had to have two fingernails removed. My bad!

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Relatively few stories involving myself.... the worst being a cut on my finger when making a lamb sandwich for Kay and I one night pre restaurant. Back when I did things like cook, eat dinner with my wife at a reasonable hour etc. We bandaged it but it looked pretty deep. After dinner, we took the bandage off (I say "we" but Kay is the one who deals with blood and spiders in our household) and as it was still oozing (or as someone who shall remain nameless screeched "Its gushing blood!") Kay made the wise decision to whack me over the head with a frying pan to sedate me and drive me to Holy Cross to the emergency room. We were seen fairly quickly and the doctor said to me after finishing with the compression bandage, "You look familiar Mr Gold." It was then that we remembered that he was the doc who saw me when I was having my heart attack. He said that he never finds out what happened to his ER patients once they get admitted and it was nice to know that his work helped save my life!

But the worst kitchen injury I was part of predates my marriage and it is sort of an off color story. I was conducting a long distance relationship with a woman in Minneapolis. I was up visiting her and we were going to a party with her rowdy friends and my task was to make a harmless looking dish that would sear the mouths off her macho friends. I decided to make chile con queso and use a few dried habaneros in it. Well a few dozen. A 4 oz bag to be exact. SO I toasted the chiles (with the window open and a fan blowing the smoke out of the apartment). I then proceeded to use gloves to break them open and remove the seeds and membranes. I dumped them into a blender to crumble them en mass. When I dumped out the resulting mix, there were a few large pieces left which I proceeded to break up with my bare fingers. I washed my hands carefully with industrial grade soap (she was a photographer and used a soap she used to make sure to get off all of the various noxious chemicals her job required), then followed it up with a lemon & salt wash followed up by another wash with regular soap. I even put my fingers in my mouth to make sure there was no heat left.

Tasteless part of the story alert

We then looked at the clock and realized we didn't have to leave for the party for a few minutes, just enough time for some extracurricular activity on the kitchen floor. We were rolling around on the floor and I removed a strategic piece of her clothing and was engaged in some serious foreplay when she started screaming. Cold water only made things worse, cold cream was better. Just as we were about to go to the emergency room, she finally found something which brought relief: cream cheese. Don't ask me how she decided to use it, but she did. By now we were going to be quite late for the party and she had to go put on her makeup again etc. When she returned from the bathroom she had changed from her originally planned tight jeans to a skirt and she walked funny all night long. She also had to hand onto my arm for support in order to stay standing. Her guy friends were impressed with all this evidence of my supposed prowess!

I on the other hand, acquired several new nicknames ("asshole" and "someone who thinks hes Hot Stuff" being the only ones I would print here) and didn't get any for the rest of the weekend, which was spent in a proper sense of shame and repentance pampering to her. Somehow being spoon-fed chocolate fudge ice cream in bed while I knelt on the floor next to her begging her forgiveness seemed to make her feel better.

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Lots of knife mishaps, including cutting my fingernails off at a knife skills class due to not realizing just how sharp carbon knives can be (not blood though!).

The one that hurt the most, though, was grating most of my knuckles on one hand while not paying closer attention while grating some cheese. OUCH!

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Lots of knife mishaps, including cutting my fingernails off at a knife skills class due to not realizing just how sharp carbon knives can be (not blood though!).

The one that hurt the most, though, was grating most of my knuckles on one hand while not paying closer attention while grating some cheese. OUCH!

I would take a deep cut over grating anyday. I have done both numerous times and a knifing (*sharp and non-serrated) is surprisingly painless if it is clean. Grating just has that shiver factor like fingernails on a chalkboard plus when you shave off a chunk it leaves so much more exposed skin and there is nothing you can really do about it. When you clean and properly bandage/stitch a deep cut there shouldn't be that much exposure. A grate is just wide open so a stiff breeze causes intense stinging and of course I always forget about it and start squeezing limes by hand or something. MY least favorite is knuckle grates. Eeeeeshhhh gives me the heebies just thinking about it.

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Tasteless part of the story alert

We then looked at the clock and realized we didn't have to leave for the party for a few minutes, just enough time for some extracurricular activity on the kitchen floor. We were rolling around on the floor and I removed a strategic piece of her clothing and was engaged in some serious foreplay when she started screaming.

Was this ever reported to Masters and Johnson? [Foreplay: How to get your partner really HOT ...and bothered]
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I had a similar story in mind, but I'm glad someone else pulled the trigger (or pressed the button, or.....) first. :blink:

I had finely diced about 2 cups worth of jalapenos. No gloves. Yes, washed my hands. Should have given more consideration to the heat I felt in my finger tips-- especially underneath the nail.

After some time passed, and she acquired a sense of humor about it, she would refer to me as Moses. Think about it... :P

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....and that's how I came to be known as 'The Man With The Melted Hand' around the nurse's office for about the next two weeks. Be careful when cleaning out ovens, folks. :blink:

What! It healed up really nice. Worst part? I got a 65 for the day. :P

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